Project Team:
Cathryn Dwyre, Chris Perry with Richard Sarrach, Gabriela Fiorentino, Yara Kawar, Dariusz Kulinski, Skye Ruozzi, Jacob Wigton, Hailey Beyer
The elusive presence of global warming – rendered visible only at the very local effects of climate change such as in the case of coastal flooding – serves as a harbinger of tomorrow’s world; it foreshadows a displacement of Western civilization’s anthropocentric orientation in both experiential and philosophical terms. If our previous concept of ‘world’ was premised on the assumption that humans exist outside of ‘nature,’ today’s understanding of tomorrow’s ‘world’ renders such distinctions between human and nonhuman space transitional and thus inherently ambiguous.
Τransitional Environments brings together the work of Cathryn Dwyre and Chris Perry, their interdisciplinary design practice pneumastudio, as well as their academic design research conducted at Pratt Institute and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, respectively. Viewed as larger body of design research, the work explores the simultaneous proximity of and separation between human and nonhuman space by producing transitional material, formal, spatial, and programmatic conditions. Irreducible to one state or the other, these transitional environments are inherently ‘postnatural’; rather than seek a resolution to the nature-culture conflict that characterizes our contemporary moment, they instead seek to reveal new forms of critical awareness and creative potential by embracing it.
The installation hosts the following projects:
A Curious Cabinet by pneumastudio (Cathryn Dwyre and Chris Perry), 2017
Anthropocene Folly by pneumastudio (Cathryn Dwyre and Chris Perry), 2015
Into the Fog by Gabriela Fiorentino and Yara Kawar (thesis students), Cathryn Dwyre and Richard Sarrach (studio critics), Pratt School of Architecture, 2016
Scar City by Dariusz Kulinski and Skye Ruozzi (thesis students), Cathryn Dwyre and Richard Sarrach (studio critics), Pratt School of Architecture, 2016
Disfigured Landscapes by Jacob Wigton (thesis student), Chris Perry (studio critic), Rensselaer School of Architecture, 2016
Transgenic Environments by Hailey Beyer (thesis student), Chris Perry (studio critic), Rensselaer School of Architecture, 2016
A Curious Cabinet, pneumastudio, 2017
